


The Dead Won't Leave Me Be and the Living Won't Stop Hurting Me

by sweetNsimple



Category: The Avengers
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Bad People Do Bad Things, Character Deaths, EVERYONE IS MARRIED, Except Natasha and Pepper Because They Are Too Busy For That Sort Of Thing, F/F, Feel Free To Tell Me If I Am Missing Tags, For WitchWarren's Sake, Gay-Straight Alliance Club Mentioned Often, Ghosts, High School, High School Teachers, Hurt/Comfort, I Will Not Be Offended, Inspired By The Movie 'Odd Thomas', M/M, Molestation, Multi, Past Military Backgrounds, Peter Parker and Miles Morales Are Adopted, Psychic Clint Barton, Psychic!Clint Barton, This Will Tear Your Heart Out And Spit On It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1862559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The betrayal of his own gift came years later, when he found out that he could have let his mom touch him.  That he could have hugged her and gotten kisses and had his hair petted and everything.  He could have.</p>
<p>And he hadn't because he hadn't known any better!  </p>
<p>In Cilnt's defense, there wasn't really a manual for this kind of thing.  Well, okay, there were, but they were full of shit and so were ghost hunter TV shows.  They could go suck it because they weren't right nearly as often as they pretended to be.</p>
<p>The dead still didn't talk.  Clint didn't think that was going to change with age, it wasn't a hearing problem that he would mature out of.  </p>
<p>But it turned out, he could touch them.  All he had to do was let them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dead Won't Leave Me Be and the Living Won't Stop Hurting Me

Clint's last memory of his momma was of the blood on her pretty flower dress and the tears falling down her face. She'd reached out, mouth moving, and Clint had been really good at reading lips, always had been, and she'd been saying, _“Let me touch you”_ , and Clint had frowned, confused, and said, “I can't, momma, you said the dead can't touch the livin'.”

She'd cried a lot. Clint hadn't known that ghosts could cry till that moment. All he'd known was that the dead didn't talk. Didn't know why, just knew that, when they opened their mouth, when they tried to scream, to talk, to beg, nothing came out.

His big brother had hit him over the head for talking to a wall. “Momma ain't here, stupid! I'd hear their car pull up.”

His momma had cried more.

When they finally did hear a car pull up outside the trailer, she'd wiped her face, tucked her hair behind her ears, and had smiled shakily at him. She'd said, without a sound, _“I love you both so much,”_ and Clint noticed the huge hole in the back of her skull, red and empty, as she stood up and walked toward the window. He stood up to follow her and watched as the flowers on her dress came alive and watched her become the flowers, and then, on a breeze that wasn't there, the pretty flowers floated away.

Clint had been happy that she'd finally died. Maybe that was a weird thought for a little kid to have, but he really didn't want to see his dad beat on her anymore. She was the most important woman in his life, had been and always would be, and he'd wanted her to go to Heaven where she'd be treated right by God and all his angels.

He'd been ready for his dad to come through the door, maybe covered in his momma's blood, probably ready to off them too because he was a drunk ass who hated all of them and Clint was going to die without knowing why.

Barney answered the door when someone knocked because he was older, and two police officers came in. They were really nice as they crouched down and told them the news.

“We're sorry to say this, but...”

That was how Clint found out that his dad was dead too.

And then he was angry. “Fucker died with momma,” he grumbled in the back of the police car. The police had turned on the lights and sirens and everything, but it might have been to shut up Barney's cursing more than to amuse them. He clasped his hands together and prayed real hard.

“Dear God, please send Dad to Hell, so momma doesn't have to deal with him anymore. Amen.”

~::~

The betrayal of his own gift came years later, when he found out that he _could_ have let his mom touch him. That he could have hugged her and gotten kisses and had his hair petted and everything. He _could_ have.

And he hadn't because he hadn't known any better!

In Cilnt's defense, there wasn't really a manual for this kind of thing. Well, okay, there were plenty of them, but they were full of shit and so were ghost hunter TV shows. They could go suck it because they weren't right nearly as often as they pretended to be.

The dead still didn't talk. Clint didn't think that was going to change with age, it wasn't a hearing problem that he would mature out of.

But it turned out, he could touch them. All he had to do was _let_ them.

~::~

He was coming home from the diner when he found his husband waiting for him on the doorstep again, his suit carefully pressed and not at all mussed, as if he had just put it on and stepped out.

Clint smiled, feeling the stress of life, _his_ life in particular where he'd chased down a car that morning because the driver had been a pedophile and little Mary Ellen had looked at Clint with huge, brown eyes as she'd pointed at the back of the man's head and sobbed without a noise.

It was part of what he went through, part of what he had to go through, because, as his friends from his high school Gay-Straight Alliance Club liked to tell him, he had a gift, and he had to use it for the greater good. He'd been pretty well off ignoring it for all of middle school, but he figured they'd had a point.

His life had gotten a lot better and a lot worse since then, but this man, this human being before him with his soft smile and softer eyes, made the stress roll off as if he'd just stepped under an umbrella away from the rain.

“Hey, there, babe.” Clint pushed his body against his husband's, hiding his face against the other man's throat, arms around his waist because it hurt to raise them too high. “How'd your day go?”

He pulled back enough to see Phil's expression. For a moment, he was confused to see it closed off, maybe a bit teary, but then Phil blinked and he was alright, smiling again, hand coming up to cradle Clint's cheek. He didn't say a word as he pulled Clint in close and kissed him gently, warmly, the same way he liked to make love to him.

Clint moaned breathlessly and expertly reached around Phil with his house key to unlock their front door. They tumbled inside with Clint laughing, Phil holding him close and carefully. He'd been the one to bandage Clint earlier, seen the bruises on his ribs, tutting over them like a mother hen and giving him a strongly disappointed look.

“Well?” Clint asked when they finally pulled away for a moment. “Not gonna talk, huh?” He grinded his hips against his husband's, warming up to the idea. Just action, then. Just them, no words, touching, pleasure, a bite of pain, just enough to send them over. Clint tugged Phil's bottom lip with his teeth, just letting words float away as he and Phil swayed and caressed their way to their bedroom.

Clint barely even paid attention to the blinking light on his answering machine. All it really brought to mind was that he was going to have to get a new cell phone because his latest one had tragically perished against his fight with the pedophile.

And then he wasn't thinking about it at all, because Phil was pushing him into their bed, facedown, hand on the back of Clint's neck, and Clint went limp and let his eyes close, and sighed deeply as he let Phil lick and kiss and finger him open.

The orgasm, when it came, was pretty fantastic. Didn't know why Phil hadn't sealed the deal, but, sometimes, he guessed it was pretty erotic to just jerk off while his partner came undone in front of him. He didn't hold it against Phil.

Turning over to lay on his side, Phil was still dressed, though much more mussed now. He stretched out next to Clint and his hands were instantly on him, mouth against his mouth, and Clint was starting to get a little suspicious that Phil hadn't pulled out his dick at all.

He knew they'd settled into silence, but he offered, “Need me to finish you off?”

Phil smiled again and shook his head. He dragged his nails over Clint's scalp and Clint didn't fight him, didn't question why he was being a little bit weird.

He just went to sleep, right next to his husband.

~::~

When he woke up the sound of someone pounding on the front door, it felt like hardly any time later. Looking at his bedside clock, turned out it had only been ten minutes.

He grumbled and shot a dark look towards Phil for not getting up and answering the door for him.

Phil just looked back, still dressed, and swallowed thickly, lips tightly pressed together.

“Hey, hey, hey...” Clint reached over and clasped his hand. “Watcha worried 'bout?” he sleep-grumbled. “'Kay, _I'll_ get it. Just, stay, gorgeous.” He winked and wobbled to his feet.

Phil stood up and followed him.

“Probably should get back in bed,” Clint reasoned with him. “You're pretty cold.”

The door slammed open before he even reached it. And in came Natasha Romanov, the former most deadly member of the late Gay-Straight Alliance Club. Her expression was harder to read than usual, and that unnerved Clint a bit.

“Uh, hey,” he greeted a bit awkwardly. “God, what happened?”

“Clint,” Natasha started, and something really must be wrong for her to be looking at him that way, eyes dark and guarded, head tilted down, taking slow steps towards him as if he might suddenly lash out. “Is Phil here?”

Clint frowned. “Well, he kind of lives here. Was he supposed to be somewhere else tonight?” His frown only got deeper as Pepper came in behind Natasha, face red and blotchy, as though she'd been crying. Steve and Sam followed her in, hands carefully _not_ touching for the first time since their engagement announcement a few months back. Clint didn't see the rest of the gang, but he assumed that they were waiting outside for some signal, or at their homes, waiting by the phone to be called in. Everyone was too solemn for this to be a good surprise.

“He _is_ somewhere else,” Natasha told him, the most terrifyingly straightforward person Clint had ever known.

Clint stared at her, then at Sam and Steve. Bruce appeared in the doorway, arms crossed and looking at the ground. If Bruce was here, so was Tony, but if Tony was here and Tony was quiet and out of sight, then the situation was probably a lot worse than anything Clint could imagine. “Are you trying to tell me he's stepping out on me? 'Cause, if that's the case, you should know that he's actually here. Right now.”

“No, Clint, not all of him.” Natasha reached out and threaded her slim fingers through his hair. “His body is at the morgue. There was a...”

But Clint wasn't listening anymore. His head snapped around, finding Phil just behind him. There were two large splotches of blood on his chest and belly, the blood having run sideways over his ribs, the left side of his body soaked in red. He caught Clint's gaze and held it, so much sorrow and guilt in his eyes. His mouth moved, _“I'm so sorry,”_ and Clint was _done_.

~::~

Clint didn't work at the Hawkeye diner. He was, in fact, legally employed at his old high school as a Physics teacher, which was something he and his friends had most certainly not seen coming, but none of them had really been surprised by how good Clint was at his job. Or how his favorite section was trajectory science. Because Clint was an archer at heart, and a gun fanatic, and knowing how things moved and what moved them, where they would move to, what and how they would react to other things, was just something he was gifted at.

So, no. Clint didn't work at the diner. Who did work at the diner, however, was one of his students (his favorite student, but he would never tell her that, or anyone that, except Phil some nights), Kate Bishop. After Clint's day was over, her day began, and she caught him just as he was going out the door – slowly, careful, trying not to clutch at his side and be obvious as he limped out of the Vice Principals' office, which belonged to Vice Principal Hill and, more importantly to Clint, Vice Principal Coulson, who had chided him again for his stint this morning and promised he would pick him up a new phone, so _go straight home, Barton_ – to ask if he would come over at eight, when they officially closed and clean up officially began. She'd split her pay with him, she'd do extra credit, she'd clean up the lab for two, no, three, no, _six_ months if he would wrap up her shift, she _promised_.

There was a party going on, she told him. And then, unsurprisingly, the party turned out to be at the Stark-Banner's mansion, where Tony damnit Stark-Banner and Robert Bruce Stark-Banner co-inhabited with their adopted sons, plural, Miles Morales and Peter Parker. Both boys shared an unhealthy obsession with spiders that had caused them to, more than once, glue themselves to unusual surfaces, such as walls or ceilings or the outside of buildings when they were younger, and the obsession hadn't really so much died as gotten sneakier since then.

She wanted to leave work by eight so that she could get home, get ready, be out the door by eight-thirty, arrive shortly thereafter, and have fun. Safe fun. Because any fun at the Stark-Banner's mansion, while wild and unforgettable, very rarely if even ever got out of hand. Tony had that personality, always had, of an uncontrollable party boy, and age had taught him how to keep others just off the edge of doing something unforgivable and illegal. Luckily, he still knew how to stay _fun_ , and Bruce Stark-Banner, who was shyer and didn't like to be surrounded by people, could still somehow manage to terrify a mansion full of teenagers into obedience, as well as those teenagers' parents if he thought that any of their behavior had been inherited.

Clint had given in pretty easily. Kate should go to parties, and he'd rather she go to Stark-Banner household parties where Bruce had taught Peter and Miles how to do several different life-saving protocols such as CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver and where Tony had taught them how to tell when someone had been drugged and when someone was on drugs.

It was their parties, or Hammer parties, and Hammer didn't even have kids, which made him really fucking creepy in Clint's books.

Clint had made a quick detour back to tell Phil that he would be at the diner later that night and Phil had huffed, given him a blank stare and told him, frankly, that he disagreed with several of Clint's life choices and that this was one of them.

Clint had laughed, which had caused Phil's mouth to quirk into an almost-smile, and he'd said, _“Love ya,_ ” to which Phil had quietly reciprocated with, _“To death and insanity.”_

So there Clint was, without a cell phone, working someone else's shift at a place he didn't actually work at to begin with, and only two people knew where he was. One of them was at a party, and the other died at the local Country Fair getting gas at roughly eight-fifteen.

Two shots to the back of the chest – _POW! POW!_ \- and Phil's wallet was gone, as well as the Rollex Bruce and Tony had gotten him last Christmas, as well as his engagement and wedding rings that weren't actually worth anything more than sentiment because Clint had been a broke college student and Phil had been on leave from the Army when they'd eloped.

The assailant had also taken the keys to Phil's precious 1962 Chevrolet Corvette that they had fixed up together from the time they'd gotten the beaten up pile of junk in their Senior year of high school to the year Phil had finally been discharged from the Army four years later. The Corvette's name had been Lola.

They had taken everything, but one thing. They had dug through the wallet, checking its contents, and had found a picture of Phil and Clint on Pepper's and Natasha's porch swing from two years ago, when the women had bought their new home and they had been helping Pepper and Natasha move in. Clint had one leg braced on the porch railing, pushing them back and forth, with Phil's upper body leaning against his, one arm across Phil's shoulders and the other resting on his thigh while Phil held his closer hand in one and draped his other arm over Clint's legs. They'd been lazily looking at the neighborhood. Not even kissing, not even looking at each other, just holding on and taking it all in.

A witness, terrified and hiding behind her car, believed the assailant than spat on Phil's body, called him a “fag”, and then took the car and left. Just like that.

Phil's life ended just like that. Not heroically, not protecting students during a school shooting or pushing someone else out of a car's way, not falling out of a tree after saving someone's cat or suffocating in a fire after rushing in to rescue someone's child. Just, two shots to the back, wallet in his hand as he went for his debit card to pay for his gas. In his free hand, he had been fiddling with a phone, setting the date and time and making a recording for one of the contact's ringtones.

It was Clint's new phone, and the assailant hadn't taken it with him. The screen had cracked on contact with the cement ground.

The recording was for whenever Phil called Clint.

“ _You should answer your phone when your husband is calling you.”_

It hadn't taken long to identify Phil because he was a regular at that Country Fair and the employee at the cash register, Skye, had practically been convinced that Phil was actually her father. And then she had seen him die.

From there, his home had been invaded, but he wasn't there. Bruce and Tony had been contacted, the news had spread like wildfire, and Kate had told them about Clint filling in for her, but he wasn't there by the time they came looking.

When they came back to his house, it was too late. Phil was already home and Clint was napping, not thinking about how Phil was so carefully far away from his arms, not thinking about why Phil wasn't even hard after what they had done, not thinking about Phil's silence, not thinking about how he hadn't seen Lola in the driveway, not thinking about how Phil was still icy cold and how his mouth had been dry, not thinking of anything at all but what a long day it had been that had started with a pedophile, but at least ended with his husband.

But, it turned out, it was his husband that had ended.

When Clint was upset, he tended to find somewhere high with a view of all exits available. While he and Phil had been living in a small apartment closer to downtown, Phil had gone looking for a place that was larger, not extraordinary, but comfortable. He had been sold for the last house on Bus Street, which had an upstairs balcony that could only be accessed by the master bedroom window.

Clint was there now, because he couldn't handle all the people, even if they were his friends, piling into his house.

He couldn't even handle Phil, but Phil wasn't going anywhere. Phil was sitting right beside him, not a spot on him, immaculate, looking up at the sky while Clint stared sightlessly down at the street.

He wasn't thinking about suicide. It wasn't what he wanted and it definitely wouldn't be what Phil wanted. His friends would be pissed. Natasha would probably follow after him just so that she could drag him back and kill him herself, and not even Pepper could stop her. Tony was so damned smart, he could probably turn Clint into his own personal Frankenstein's Monster.

 

He wouldn't do that to Phil, though, Clint knew. For all their bickering, Tony and Phil had incredible respect for each other... Or they had had incredibly respect for each other.

 

Because Phil was _dead_ , but he was still here, he wasn't moving on, he wasn't leaving, _and the dead could touch the living_ , and Clint just wanted Phil to kiss him one more time, a hundred more times, as often and as frequently as possible, and he wanted Phil to stay, almost needed it, but he needed Phil to leave even more.

“You should go,” Clint whispered. “You'll be happy. And I'll, I'll see you again.” It hurt to say it. Hurt to think about it. Because _I'll see you again_ didn't equate to _in the morning_ , or _at night_. It wasn't _after work_ or _tomorrow_ , it wasn't _soon_ or _later_ , it was days, weeks, months, years away, whenever Clint finally kicked the bucket and _would_ they see each other again? Would they? Would they end up in the same place, were they allowed to wait around for each other? How did that work?

Clint wrapped his arms around his legs and held himself together by sheer force of will.

Then lips were on his temple, and it was Phil, kissing him.

Phil, his husband, his high school sweetheart, that serious, gangly kid from the Gay-Straight Alliance Club who had started out with a huge crush on the school's football captain/artist, Steven Grant Rogers, but had ended up with the Archery Club's president/nobody Clinton Francis Barton instead.

And Phil was dead.

He choked on a sob, fingers tight in the fabric of his jeans, and his eyes burned and watered and his head was beginning to hurt, his chest felt impossibly tight and he couldn't suck in air anymore, he was choking on a scream, choking on how much it already hurt and Phil wasn't even _gone_ yet.

Clint could see ghosts, which no one else he knew saw. And now no one else could see his husband.

Because his husband was _dead_ , and Clint had his own set of rings to remember him by, this house full of memories and pictures and mementos.

“I'll see you again,” Clint said again, harsher this time, because _he_ had to believe it, maybe even more than Phil did. “I'll find you. Or you'll find me. We'll see each other again.”

But Phil didn't go. Phil stayed, and he pulled Clint under his arm and to his body.

No breath, no heartbeat, no warmth. Just this spirit that was pseudo-tangible because Clint had unknowingly believed that it was, and now he couldn't knowingly tell himself that it wasn't.

This was probably going to cause him issues with other spirits. Other spirits that didn't want to make love to Clint so much as beat him, break him down, hurt him with more than a few Poltergeist tricks.

He pushed his face into his hand. “God _damn it_ , Phil.”

He couldn't make himself say it again – _I'll see you again –_ because he might not, and he was terrified that this would be the time Phil listened.

Clint wasn't ready to let go yet. Just, just let him hold on for a few more hours. One more night. It was almost already morning, it wouldn't do any harm.

It wouldn't.

~::~

Phil didn't leave in the morning. Or the next day. Or the next week. Or the next month.

Phil refused to leave Clint behind. He wasn't going anywhere till Clint was good and ready to go with him.

Clint and Phil celebrated the eighteen anniversary of their marriage together, two years after Phil had died, and Clint ended up calling in sick off work just like last year so that he could spend the day indoors with his husband.

“How's Vice Principal today?” Tony asked the next day, leaning against Clint's desk even though Tony didn't even work a the school. “Is he going to finally snap and turn this school into another episode of _School Spirits_?”

Clint snorted and Phil, at a lack of anything else to do, made the room colder. Tony shivered.

“Is that a yes?” Tony asked.

“Maybe,” Clint answered cheekily.

“Maybe it's a yes, or maybe he's going to snap?”

“Maybe.”

“You know, Barton, this might have escaped your notice, but everyone else knows that you are the least helpful son of a bitch at this school, and I personally know that Fury once watched two kids vandalize my car without lifting a finger to stop them.”

“The Hello Kitty Pink really suited you.” Clint smirked evilly. Tony made a highly offended noise.

Then Bruce was there, because Bruce _did_ work at the school, he was their Chemistry teacher, and he gave Tony his best half-impatient look. “School's starting soon.” Cheekily, he added, smiling slightly, “You should get to homeroom.”

“Hah.” Tony sneered. “Hah. Hah. Hah! Wow, Mr. Stark-Banner, it's almost like I keep you around just to be _cute_.”

Bruce Banner in high school had shut down whenever popular, rich, and incredibly intelligent Tony Stark had walked down the hall and winked at him, loudly proclaiming him his Alliance Bro, and then, later, after an incident in the chemistry lab had made a mess of his chest, his Science Bro. Tiny, unpopular, pimple-faced Bruce Banner who hated everyone and was only getting angrier at the world and people and even sometimes them, had become a man who calmly looked Tony Stark-Banner, his husband, in the eye and said, without even a stutter or blush, “One of us has to be.”

Then he benevolently accepted Clint's high five as Tony played at heartbreak, folding over Clint's desk like a fainting heroine out of a cheap, outdated romance novel.

Bruce leaned over him and kissed the tip of his nose like the adorable man he was, smiling as he ran his fingers through Tony's hair.

Tony, eyes closed, smiled. “You complete me.”

“I know.” And Bruce did. They all did. “I love you too, Tony. But it's time for you to go. Peter needs you, remember?”

Tony sighed, not seeming like he wanted to move anytime soon, though he probably did want to get back to their son.

“Still hasn't gotten any better, has he?” Clint asked. Peter had gotten ill three days ago and hadn't bounced back yet. Clint had gotten a text last night that had said the fever he had started that morning had broken without going dangerously high, but, apparently, that wasn't enough.

“He's better today than he has been,” Bruce answered. Clint glimpsed toward the door as a student walked by. “We just weren't ready to let him come back to school yet. Today will probably be the last day.”

Harry Osborne paused, looked at them, and then turned direction and went back.

Clint looked to Phil, who looked back at him with a frown. He suddenly had a really bad feeling.

“If he's feeling up to it, we might have a pizza party tonight. To celebrate him surviving the flu.” Tony smirked as Bruce gave him a highly disapproving look.

“That wouldn't really do him much good at the moment.”

“But it would be _worth_ it.”

“No, Tony.”

“But, _honey_ – ”

Phil flicked a paperclip at Tony that landed in his open mouth. Tony did an interesting move where his upper body jerked back and his lower body jerked forward, hands coming up, while a high-pitched noise of disgust was released from the back of his throat.

He spat out the paperclip, grimacing. “Not cool, Vice Principal! Not cool!”

Phil was smiling, and Clint tried to laugh along, but he was uneasy now. Aware of something he wasn't sure of.

“Y'know, Phil, one day I'm going to be dead, like you, and I bet spirits can touch spirits, and then we'll settle this like men,” Tony was grumbling.

“Yes, but you're not going to die for a very long time, are you?” Bruce pressed his cheek against Tony's. “You have to stick around for the boys.”

“And you.”

Bruce smiled. “And me.”

“Well, my lovelies, I have to go now and take care of a little, sick spider!” Tony did an about face out the door, waving a quick peace sign over his shoulder at them. “Be nice to the kiddies, boys.”

Bruce chuckled and shook his head, watching after his husband as if he was simultaneously working on believing that he had married that unbelievable man and on believing that he had gotten to marry him.

But Clint couldn't work up any humor now. Something bad was going to happen.

He waited till Bruce left before turning to Phil. His husband was watching him with concern.

“Babe,” Clint said. “Can you follow Tony for me?”

Phil nodded, pressed a light kiss to Clint's temple, and was gone.

Somehow, that still didn't feel like it would be enough.

~::~

Tony had inherited a failing weapons manufacturing company from his drunk father as a young adult after his legal guardian had been arrested for acts of terrorism. He had saved it by sheer will, sleepless nights, endless cups of coffee, and by changing to producing clean, renewable energy sources instead of weapons of mass destruction that had kept the Stark name infamous since World War II.

Of course, they had been there with him every step of the way, even when Tony hadn't wanted them to be. Pepper even became PA and then his CEO so that Tony could concentrate his skills and knowledge in the Engineering and Computers department. Natasha worked there for a few months, but left because it wasn't what she wanted to do.

The day stocks had reached one billion dollars, Tony had casually asked Steve to propose to Bruce for him, because Steve was the kind of old-fashioned, all-around good guy that would do it perfectly. Steve had told him to do it himself, so Tony had.

From what Clint understood, it had happened at the supermarket while Bruce had been looking at tomatoes. He had offhandedly asked Tony, “Should we get cherry or grape?” And he had held them out for Tony to see the difference (he hadn't).

But Tony had still answered, “Oh, God, I can't do this anymore. Please, _please_ , hear me say please? Please put this ring on, don't ask what it's for, and when we're in front of, oh, say, a preacher, just say 'I do' when they ask, okay?”

Bruce had, of course, known what the ring was for. But he had played Tony for the longest time, pretending that he didn't, telling people that he was wearing it on his ring finger because it was the finger it fit on best, causing Tony to internally freak out right up until the day before the wedding.

Because Bruce could be incredibly evil like that, and he had known about the ring even before Tony had asked Steve to propose to him, and he felt he was justified a little bit for being made to wait so long for Tony to ask.

Clint had half-expected for Bruce to angelically and innocently stand at the alter, look at the preacher and say, “What wedding vows? Who's getting married?” And, judging by the panicked look on Tony's face, Tony had been waiting for it as well.

Turned out, Bruce's wedding vows were beautiful, quiet, and had had Tony blinking his eyes constantly so as not to cry (he told them the sun was in his eyes, which made no sense because the sun had been behind him).

A few more years down the road, Tony and Bruce adopted a young Peter Parker after his uncle had been killed and his aunt had passed away. Some time after that, Miles Morales came into their household.

Of the members of the former Gay-Straight Alliance Club, they were the only two to have kids. Tony and Bruce were helping Steve and Sam with the process, though, so that they could get their own child. Steve and Sam had been in the military for twelve years, Sam as an Air Force counselor and Steve as an Army Captain, before their contracts dissolved and they came back home for good. Sam became a school counselor and Steve went to college as an Art major.

Now they wanted what Tony and Bruce had, and it was about damn time as far as everyone was concerned. Those two had kidnapped Tony's and Bruce's brats on more than one occasion.

Clint and Phil... Well. They hadn't wanted to adopt kids, they sort of had a school full of demons they were already busy taking care of. But they hadn't _not_ wanted to adopt either. It had been on the back burner, not as important as everything else they were doing, but not unimportant enough to not think about at all.

Now that Phil was dead, even though he was still around, there were a lot of things Clint could think of that they should have done together.

Didn't matter anymore. At least Clint still had Phil, and that was so much more than anyone else ever got.

So much more than what Bruce got.

By the time Phil appeared again, his face urgent, Clint had known that, whatever had happened, whatever was happening, he would still be too late to stop it.

He still tried, running out on his class without explanation, highjacking Bruce and Sam on his way out, calling Pepper on the road, knowing that something was wrong, something had gone horribly wrong, and he didn't need to look at Phil to figure that out.

The Stark-Banner Mansion's looked untouched. Completely innocent, without anything unusual to mark the chaos inside.

Harry Osborne was crumpled and unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, the back of his head bleeding. The lights wouldn't turn on, and all Clint could hear was Peter's voice sobbing into a cell phone, begging for the ambulance to hurry up.

Harry Osborne was someone Peter Parker had met back in middle school. They had started out as good friends. Great friends. Where everyone else made fun of Peter for his bug - sorry, _arachnid_ - obsession and intelligence, Harry had gravitated towards him, sweeping Peter under his wing and possessively holding on.

For the longest of times, there had been a bet running on when Harry and Peter would come out as a couple. The trouble began when that didn't happen.

The trouble began because that _didn't_ happen, and Harry had wanted it to. Harry had openly come to Tony and Bruce, at first asking them how he could get Peter to like him back, and then telling them that they had to talk sense into their son for not liking him back.

Sophomore year of high school, Peter didn't even look at Harry in the halls. He would never tell them why, didn't want to talk about why he looked so furious whenever he caught Harry talking to any of his friends or Miles, or even them. Tony pushed, but Bruce was patient.

As it turned out, Harry had been molesting Peter for the past two years, and Peter hadn't told anyone. He hadn't wanted to cause trouble between Stark Industries and OsCorp, the company that Harry Osborne's father ran. He hadn't wanted to cause a big scandal, or have people tell him that he should have gone out with Harry. Everyone always liked Harry, so Peter though that no one would believe him, or that it would be his fault that this was happening.

Harry had walked into their conversation just in time to hear that Peter wasn't well, but wasn't feeling horrible. He hadn't heard the part where Tony was going home instead of to work, so he had dropped by the store on his way over to the Stark-Banner Mansion, a housekey in his pocket that he had never given back after their friendship had been truly and horribly destroyed, to get condoms.

He had never gone all the way with Peter, but he had though that today was the day to do it.

He parked his car down the street from the Stark-Banner Mansion, hidden by an alcove of trees, and peacefully broke in, quietly, so as not to give Peter a heads-up, and then shut the power off. He had been working under the assumption that Peter wouldn't notice because Peter should be in bed without the lights on anyway, sleeping, or at most, doing homework by the light of the sun that shined directly into his room. Maybe playing on his computer, which he never checked the battery life for.

Harry _knew_ Peter.

He just hadn't known Peter's parents as well as he thought he had.

Coming up from the basement, he heard Tony cursing, coming down to check the breakers, and he'd made a quick decision. He went back downstairs and waited for Tony to descend. With a scrap piece of metal, he knocked Tony over the head, grabbed his phone so that he couldn't call anyone, and locked the basement door from the outside on his way back up.

Turned out, he had only hit Tony hard enough to momentarily stun him. Harry had thought he would have time to get upstairs, take Peter's phone, maybe not seal the deal today, but at least take a kiss, and then leave. Tony hadn't seen who had hit him, and Peter would never tell.

But Tony was an engineering genius, and he hadn't hopelessly pounded on the door like someone who needed help. He had liberated the door from its hinges and stormed up after Harry, who had cornered Peter on his bed.

The fight had been short and vicious because Harry _knew_ Peter, and he knew that Peter kept the rainbow folding knife with the spider-engraved handle Natasha had gotten him when he turned sixteen in his top bedside drawer, not because Peter ever planned on using it – Peter didn't actually like weapons, hated them, honestly – but because his Aunt Nat had given it to him, and that made it important. Also, because it looked cool.

Tony hadn't seen that knife in so long, he'd forgotten it existed. Right up until it had ended up in his chest. Peter had gotten the last word by shoving Harry down the stairs, but Tony had already stopped breathing by the time Peter had returned to him.

Bruce's hands were covered in blood from trying to revive his husband, anxiously and unconsciously rubbing the blood into the creases and cracks of his palms and knuckles. Miles and Peter were both red-eyed and curled into themselves beside him. Sam was rubbing Peter's back while Steve was running his hand over Miles' head.

Bruce was too far gone to notice anything.

~::~

Clint had to put Bruce to bed. The man was despondent. He'd had only enough strength to hug and kiss his boys before putting them into bed, a feat that no one was underestimating. It was the first time Bruce had even acknowledged someone else since they had left the hospital.

He helped Bruce change, which was more just him putting Bruce's pajamas in Bruce's hands and leading him to a guest bedroom. He wasn't going to force Bruce to lay down in his marriage bed.

He pulled back the sheets and gently led Bruce into bed. He had a feeling that Natasha was doing the same thing for Pepper, who had been Tony's best friend for longer than he and Bruce had been together. Or maybe Natasha wasn't. People reacted differently to loss.

Bruce grabbed his wrist as he went to draw away. “Is he here?”

His voice was weak and reedy.

Clint swallowed thickly and resolutely did not look across the bed. “Would it help you if he were?”

Bruce's fingers shook. “I don't know. I don't... Yes. No.” He sobbed. “He's here, isn't he?”

Clint sucked in a deep breath. “He never left.”

Tony looked up at him with huge, wet brown eyes. His suit was soaked with blood. Ghosts were as they saw themselves, and Tony had looked down at that last moment, blood gushing around the blade, and he probably hadn't been able to see himself any other way.

Phil always wore a suit. Always would wear a suit. Always would be impeccable, because Phil was impeccable.

(Except for that one time when he hadn't been.)

Tony reached out, almost touching Bruce, and then stopped.

Clint swallowed thickly. Phil's hand settled on his shoulder. Tony didn't even look up at them.

“Bruce, I need you to just believe for a moment that the dead can touch the living.”

Bruce closed his eyes tightly, tears leaking down his cheeks, and his face and body was a study in concentration, brow furrowed, lips pressed thinly, fists clenched.

He whispered, “Please,” and Tony carefully, with desperation on his face, went to rest his hand in Bruce's hair.

Bruce stopped breathing as he was petted, and Tony's chest hitched as a smile quivered across his face. He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Bruce's forehead.

“Tony,” Bruce breathed. “I love you.”

Tony pressed his lips to Bruce's cheek and mouthed, _“_ _You complete me_ _.”_

Tony stayed there, curled over Bruce, petting him, for a long time. Clint almost stood up, almost went to leave, but then Tony was focused on him and Phil.

The look in his eyes was painful to look at, and Clint's breath caught as he realized what it meant.

Tony smiled when he saw Clint understood.

_Tony was going to move on_.

Because Bruce and the kids weren't like Clint, who had come to accept that Phil wasn't going anywhere. Bruce couldn't live with a dead man, couldn't live with knowing that they were holding Tony back. Peter wouldn't survive with the guilt he already had and the knowledge that his dad was still in the house. Miles was terrified of ghosts.

Tony couldn't stay here. Tony couldn't hurt his own family like that.

Clint tried to breathe around the knot in his throat. “We've got them,” he told Tony.

Bruce's breathing stuttered, but he didn't stop Tony. Didn't say a word to make him stay.

Tony kissed Bruce one last time, stood up, and moved away. He managed a shaky wink and peace sign for them, poked Phil in the side with a half-triumphant look, and then walked out the window. He disappeared out of sight for just a moment, and then there was bright red and gold flower petals swirling towards the sky.

“He's gone?”

Clint laid down beside Bruce. “He's gone.”

Bruce's breathing became frantic. “I change my mind. I want him back. I want him _back_ –” Clint roped him in and held him tight while Bruce finally broke down, completely, entirely. Not just a few tears, but wails and sobs and heavy crying, yelling and hitting and begging, and Clint took it, because someone had to.

When Miles and Peter climbed in, he didn't say a word, and when they finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, he still didn't move.

“Maybe you should move on too,” Clint whispered, not looking at Phil, who had taken station in front of the door. “Does it hurt you to stay here?” He swallowed around his own pain. “'Cause it hurts me.”

Phil looked down and away, guilty. But then he looked back up, solid and not going anywhere, and Clint had to respect that it was Phil's choice to stay. That Phil wasn't going anywhere until Clint was ready to go with him.

And it did hurt Clint for him to stay. God, it hurt so much sometimes, and it was the little things that hurt more than the big things, that Phil wasn't making coffee and breakfast by the time Clint tumbled out of bed, that Phil's side of the bed was cold, that his pillow didn't smell like him anymore. Phil's toothbrush wasn't in the bathroom and he wasn't humming old pop songs while showering, and Clint couldn't sneak into the shower with him and enjoy his wet body against his. Clint didn't get to yell at Phil for working through the night, didn't get to laugh as Phil terrified students in the hallways, didn't get to stop by his office on his way home to say _“I love you”_ and be told _“To death and insanity”_ in return.

Clint didn't get to see Phil get drunk off wine that once every blue moon he allowed himself to let go, he didn't get to steal Phil's seat at the couch whenever Phil stood up and revel in the leftover heat, he didn't get to surprise tickle him because the dead. Weren't. Ticklish.

And Clint didn't get to hear Phil's voice, didn't get to see him and Principal Fury argue, didn't get to see him conspire with Vice Principal Maria Hill, didn't get to watch him bicker with Tony and laugh with Steve, didn't get to see him slave away at the gym with Natasha and brainstorm with Pepper. He was never going to be able to go to the bakery and sit at their booth and watch him inhale a banana nut muffin and a white chocolate cappuccino.

Clint couldn't hold Phil's hand in public, couldn't listen to his heartbeat, feel his breath tickling his nape as he was waking up and going to sleep.

God, no, having Phil stay sometimes felt so much more painful than if Phil were to move on, because having him stay was like having something he wanted more than anything else in the world put right in front of him, so close he could touch it just by leaning forward, and told that he couldn't have it, told that it didn't even exist.

But then Phil crossed the room and put the back of his hand against Clint's cheek, cold as it was, and Clint realized he was crying now.

Tony had made the right choice for his family. Clint knew that, and so did Phil, and so would his kids, and so would their friends.

For right now, though, for tonight, Clint could be angry, and so could everyone, that Tony had been taken away to begin with, and that Tony leaving had reminded Clint that Phil shouldn't even be here.

That didn't stop Phil from staying.


End file.
